Empire State angers New Yorkers as building honours reviled Philadelphia Eagles

The Empire State Building, for many the embodiment of New York, may not understand its city very well after all.

On Sunday night, the skyscraper attracted the ire of a sizable proportion of New Yorkers by lighting up in the colours of the Philadelphia Eagles, who had earlier reached the Super Bowl by beating the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game. The only hitch: the Eagles are the fierce rivals of the New York Giants, who Philadelphia crushed in the previous round of this year’s NFL playoffs.

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The Empire State’s tweet showing the lights in the Eagles’ green and white was soon trending on social media, with angry Giants fans wondering if the building’s official account had been hacked. Some wondered if the building had meant to honour New York’s other NFL team, the Jets, who also play in green and white.

“Did y’all lose a bet,” asked the prominent NFL journalist Mina Kimes on Twitter.

The Empire State regularly lights up in different colours to honour various causes, teams and organisations. The building’s calendar showed it had been scheduled for some time to light up in the colours of the winners of Sunday’s AFC and NFC Championship Games.

The building has honoured the Eagles before. New Yorkers were angry in 2018, when the Empire State lit up in green and white after the Eagles won that year’s Super Bowl.